Stripe to acquire OpenRouter for $7.5 billion, expanding into AI model market

Stripe announced Wednesday that it plans to acquire OpenRouter, a startup that has gained popularity among developers for accessing artificial intelligence models. The deal marks the payments company's further expansion into the AI market.

Deal Terms

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but The New York Times, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported the price tag at approximately $7.5 billion, with $1.5 billion allocated to OpenRouter's founders. Less than three months ago, OpenRouter raised $113 million at a valuation of about $1.3 billion.

Stripe declined to comment on the report.

OpenRouter's Role in AI

OpenRouter has become a go-to platform for developers seeking to use AI models, particularly those considered non-proprietary and available for free. Many of these so-called open-weight AI models originate from Chinese labs such as DeepSeek and Z.ai, which have gained traction among developers for being more cost-efficient compared to proprietary models from U.S. companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Strategic Rationale

In a blog post about the deal, Stripe noted that it has been working with companies to "optimize their token costs and route tokens efficiently"—referring to a metric used to measure AI model usage. Stripe highlighted the difficulty of managing AI costs relative to performance due to the rapid "pace at which models are released and repriced."

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said in a statement:

"Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI, and together with OpenRouter we'll help businesses maximize profitability by routing their requests intelligently and spending their tokens efficiently."

OpenRouter said in its own blog post that combining with Stripe will support its vision of:

• A healthy AI ecosystem where many models thrive
• AI neurodiversity as a strength
• A landscape where labs or inference providers with breakthroughs can reach millions of developers
• A market where no single model becomes the default by inertia

Stripe's Growth and Market Position

Stripe has become one of the most valuable startups in the world, with a valuation of close to $160 billion as of earlier this year, driven largely by its ubiquitous online payment technology. Last year, it bolstered its exposure to crypto with the $1.1 billion acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge.

The AI market, however, is significantly larger and growing faster than crypto.

Watch: Stripe and Advent in talks to buy PayPal, according to Wall Street Journal

Image credit: Patrick Collison, CEO and co-founder of Stripe, speaking at 2022's Italian Tech Week in Turin, Italy. (Giuliano Berti | Bloomberg | Getty Images)